Roland Yorke / A Sequel to "The Channings"

by Mrs. Henry Wood

LAID WITH HIS FOREFATHERS.

So great a man as Sir Richard Yorke must of course be honoured with a great funeral. He had died on a Thursday; the interment was fixed for the next Friday week: which, taking the heat of the weather and sundry other trifles into consideration, was a little longer than it need have been. Sir Vincent, his new dignity as head of the Yorke family lying upon him with a due and weighty self-importance, was determined (like Jonas Chuzzlewit of wide memory) that the public should see he did not grudge to his late father any honour in the shape of plumes and mutes and coaches and show, that it was in his power to accord to him. There were three costly coffins, one of them of lead, and at the very least three and sixty sets of towering feathers. So that Portland Place was as a gala that day, and windows and pavements were alike filled with sight-gazers.

The Rev. William Yorke, Minor Canon of Helstonleigh Cathedral, Chaplain of Hazledon, and Rector of Coombe Lee, was bidden to it. He was not very nearly related to the deceased (his father and Sir Richard had been second cousins), but he was undoubtedly a rising man in the Church, and Sir Vincent thought fit to remember the connection. The clergyman stood in the relationship of brother-in-law to Hamish Channing; and it was at Hamish's house he stayed during the brief stay--two days--of his sojourn in town.

Another, honoured with an invitation, was Gerald Yorke. Roland was not of a particularly exacting disposition, but he did think he, the eldest, ought not to have been passed over for his younger brother. Oughts don't go for much, however, in some things, as Roland knew. Gerald belonged to the great world: he had, fashionable chambers, fashionable friends, fashionable attire, and a fashionable drawl; his private embarrassments were nothing to Sir Vincent; in fact they might be said to be fashionable too: and so Gerald, the consequential, was bidden to a seat in a mourning-coach, with feathers nodding on the four horses' heads.

Roland was ignored. Not more entirely so than if Sir Vincent had never heard there was such a man in the world. A lawyer's clerk, enjoying a pound a week and a turn-up bedstead, who took copying home to do at twopence a page, and avowed he had just been nearly on the point of turning hot-pie vendor, was clearly not an individual fit to be suffered in contact with a deceased baronet, even though it were only to follow him to the tomb of his forefathers. But, though Roland was not there, his master was Mr. Greatorex. And Mr. Greatorex, as solicitor and confidential man of business to the late Sir Richard, occupied no unimportant post in the procession.

It was late in the afternoon; and the mortal remains, bereft of all their attendant pomp and plumes and scutcheons had been left in their resting-place, when a mourning coach drew up to Mr. Channing's, out of which stepped William and Gerald Yorke. Roland, happening to be there, watched the descent from the drawing-room window side by side with Nelly Channing, and it may be questioned which of the two looked on with the more unsophisticated interest. Mr. Greatorex had not been quite so unmindful of Roland's claims to be considered as Sir Vincent was, and had told him he might take holiday on the day of his uncle's funeral, by remaining away from the office.

Roland obeyed one portion of it literally--the taking holiday. It never occurred to Roland that he might turn the day to profit, by putting his shoulder to the wheel, and his fingers to copying; holiday was holiday, and he took it as such. Rigged out in a handsome new suit of black (made in haste by Lord Carrick's tailor), black gloves, and a band of cloth on his hat, Roland spent the forepart of the day in sightseeing. As many showplaces as could be gone into for nothing, or next to nothing, he went to; beginning with Madame Tussaud's waxwork, for which somebody gave him admission, and ending with a live giantess down in Whitechapel. Late in the afternoon, and a little tired, he arrived at Hamish Channing's, and was rewarded by seeing Annabel. Mrs. Bede Greatorex (gracious that day) had given Miss Channing permission to spend the evening there to meet her sister's husband, the Rev. William Yorke. Hamish, just in from his office, sat with them. Nelly Channing, her nose flattened against the windowpane, shared with Roland the delight of the descent from the coach. Its four black horses and their lofty plumes, struck on the child's mind with a sensation of awe that nearly overpowered the admiration. She wore a white frock with black sash, and had her sleeves tied up with black ribbons. Mrs. Channing, herself in black silk, possessed a large sense of the fitness of things, and deemed it well to put the child in these ribbons today, when two of the mourners would be returning there from the funeral.

They came upstairs, William and Gerald Yorke, and entered the drawing-room, the silk scarves on their shoulders, and the flowing hat-bands of crape sweeping the ground. Nelly backed into a corner, and stood there staring at the attire. It was the first time the clergyman and Roland had met for many years. As may have been gathered during back pages, Roland did not hold his cousin in any particular admiration, but he knew good manners (as he would himself have phrased it) better than to show aught but civility now. In fact, Roland's resentment was very much like that of a great many more of us--more talk than fight. They shook hands, Roland helped him to take off the scarf, and for a few moments they were absorbed in past interests. Whatever Roland's old prejudices might have been he could not deny that the Rev. William Yorke was good-looking as of yore; a tall, slender, handsome man of four-and-thirty now, bearing about him the stamp of a successful one; his fresh countenance was genial and kind, although a touch of the noted Yorke pride sat on it.

That pride, or perhaps a consciousness of his own superiority, for William Yorke was a good man and thought well of himself for it, prevented his being so frankly cordial with Roland as he might have been. Roland's many faults in the old days (as the clergyman had deemed them), and the one great fault which had brought humiliation to him in two ways, were very present to his mind tonight. Slighting remarks made by Gerald on his brother during the day, caused Mr. Yorke to regard Roland as no better than a mauvais sujet, down in the world, and not likely to get up in it. Gerald, on the contrary, he looked upon as a successful and rising man. Mr. Yorke saw only the surface of things, and could but judge accordingly.

"How is Constance?" enquired Roland. "I sent her word not to marry you, you know."